Southside Middle School

📸 SMS Photo Retake Day is Monday, 1/27! All students must be in FULL uniform on 1/27. Students who have not yet been photographed and are participating in retakes may opt to bring an additional shirt to change into for their picture. 👚 👕 Ordering information is at www.leonards.com/order.

🚨 Mark your calendars because next week Monday 1/27 to Friday 1/31 is Literacy Week! 📖 Students will have the opportunity to participate in literacy-based learning, activities, and contests during school. 📕 🌟 The goal of this year’s Celebrate Literacy Week, Florida! is to inspire a love of reading and writing while strengthening literacy skills in the students of Florida. This year’s theme is Building Literacy: Constructing the Foundation for Success. 🚧 🦺 🏗️ We look forward to celebrating on campus next week!

Given the possibility for unsafe conditions, Duval County Public Schools and district offices will be closed on Wednesday, Jan. 22. In addition, all athletics and after-school activities scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 22 will be canceled. Stay warm, Knights!

Please join us on Tuesday, January 28th at 5:30pm in the media center for our Midyear Stakeholders SAC meeting. You can also use the QR code to join via Zoom. All students with a parent or adult caretaker in attendance will receive a dress down band.

Reminder: High School Transition Night is *TONIGHT* (12/17). We hope to see you at 5:30 in the cafeteria. Doors open at 5:00.

Reminder: Please join us for High School Transition Night on Tuesday at 5:30.

Please join us for High School Transition Night on Tuesday, December 17th from 5:30 - 7:00 PM. We understand the transition from middle to high school can cause anxiety not just for students, but for families as well. To ensure a smooth and confident transition we will be providing our Southside family with information regarding: ⭐️ Review of middle school promotion requirements ⭐️High school graduation requirements ⭐️High school acceleration information ⭐️Opportunities to hear about the programs offered throughout DCPS ⭐️Access to administration and representatives from a variety of local high schools and community organizations. Hope to see you there!

We hope all of our Knights have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving break. We are grateful for all of our students, faculty, and families and look forward to having everyone back on campus on Monday 12/02. We want to recognize ELA teacher, Ms. Caserta, her students, our Team Up program staff members, and the Team Up students who initiated and participated in a successful food drive for Thanksgiving. More than 300 cans of food were collected and they put together 10 baskets of Thanksgiving food for families in our school community! A special shout out goes to Ms. Caserta’s Period 3 class who alone collected more than 100 cans of food. Thank you all for demonstrating what it means to be a Knight. You matter and you are making a difference!

🎉 Huge congratulations to Mr. Parker for being named Rookie Teacher of the Month for all of Duval County Public Schools! 🌟 We are so incredibly proud to have him on our team. His hard work, determination, and commitment to excellence make him a truly outstanding educator. 🏆 Mr. Parker absolutely deserves this recognition, and we can’t wait to see all the amazing things he’ll continue to accomplish! 👏 #TeacherOfTheMonth #ProudOfMrParker #RookieTeacher #DuvalCounty #FutureLeader

🔔 Attention students, parents, and caregivers: Progress reports are available for review in Focus. Please make time to review and reflect on your student’s progress today!

Please log in to Focus to complete the Federal Impact Aid survey as soon as possible! Please note that parents and caregivers will not be able to access student grades without completing the survey. This survey helps our school secure critical funding for everyday programming and building improvements and will be available in Focus until 12/13.

🔔 Quarter 1 report cards have been posted and are available for review in Focus.

Beginning in November, every Tuesday, Technology Services will be available to distribute free ECF laptops to any student enrolled in a traditional DCPS school. This includes students who have already been assigned a laptop from school. This will be a secondary device the students can keep at home for school use. See the details below! WHAT: Free laptop for all DCPS students! No registration necessary!* *Wait times may be shorter if ECF survey is completed in advance, but not necessary. WHEN: Every Tuesday beginning November 5th* *The week of December 16th will be on a Thursday- December 19th 8:00 am – 4:00 pm WHERE: 4075 Boulevard Center Drive, Jacksonville, FL 32207 For additional support families may call the Technology Service Desk at 904-348-5200. Pickup dates: November 5th, 12th, 19th, & 26th December 3rd, 10th, & 19th

Update: our phones lines are back up and running! Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Duval Schools: Telephone service is out in many schools across the district. All schools have direct radio contact to emergency services, but normal phone service is out. We will inform you when service is restored.

🥁 Drumroll please . . . the winner of the Hispanic Heritage Month Mural Contest was announced today during our Knight Time lessons! Congratulations to our winning student group who collaborated on a Machu Picchu mural. Thanks to all of Ms. Rossy’s students who created the beautiful murals that have been displayed in our main hall throughout the month! 🥁

Hispanic Heritage Month doesn’t come to an official end until Tuesday 10/15 but we want to share with you some of the projects our students worked on to celebrate! With the month coming to an end, we will be wrapping up the Hispanic Heritage Month Trivia during the announcements next week. Shout out to all of the winning classes! There has been so much joy each morning as classes call in competing to win. For the past month Ms. Rossy’s Spanish classes were working on three projects about Hispanic culture: creating posters with information about Spanish-speaking countries, developing an interactive museum exhibition in the main hallway, and creating murals. The students put in great effort and dedication into their projects, and wow does the main hallway look great! We look forward to being back on campus this Tuesday 10/15 and announcing the winners of our mural competition! Once the winners are announced, many of murals will travel to be on display at the DCPS downtown offices. We encouraged all of our students to participate in the Hispanic Heritage Month essay contests from the state and the district. While we didn’t have any big winners, we want to recognize our ELA teacher Mr. Cote and his students Valeria and Brianna for their hard work on their essay submissions! We are proud of you! 📍We hope all of our Knights stay safe during the storm! Stay tuned to find out the winner of the mural competition on Tuesday 10/15!📍Pictures below!

We are extremely proud of Principal Crady for being named Duval County’s Middle School Principal of the Year! 🥳 💐 In her 7+ years as principal of Southside, she has helped to make our school Southside Strong, encouraged us to Wield the Sword, pushed us to Be Our Best, challenged us to Raise Our Altitude by Shifting Our Attitude, and Remixed education with her leadership. She reminds every student and staff member every day that they matter and leads by example to show what Knightly behaviors are all about. On top of her impressive accomplishments as principal, what stands out most about Ms. Crady to those of us who get to work with her every day is the fierce love she shows to everyone in our building, day in and day out. She is a warrior for our school and the people it serves and never tires of demanding the best from and for our students and staff. We couldn’t be happier to see our fearless leader receiving this amazing honor! Please join us in offering a huge round of congratulations to Principal Crady! 🎉 ⬅️ Swipe to catch a glimpse 👀 of Ms. Crady back in the 1980s sporting her “Kids Are People Too” t-shirt. We love this little tidbit of foreshadowing and that nearly 40 years later, she is still advocating and working to ensure that children have a voice!

Did you know. . .yesterday was Custodial Worker Appreciation Day! We appreciate our team and the hard work they put in at Southside Middle School each and everyday. Yesterday during lunches the students gave Mr. Blount rounds of applause - and he even got a standing ovation from some of our awesome 8th graders! Pictured are the incredible Mr. Blount and Ms. Harmon who go above and beyond to support our school. We are so grateful for them - please give them a high five and a word of thanks when you see them on campus!

We look forward to seeing all of our Knights back in school on Monday 9/30! In case you missed it.....We are so excited and proud beyond words to announce Ms. Fecca as our 2024-25 Teacher of the Year! Our beloved Algebra teacher is a true favorite amongst students and staff alike. Her students broke school records last year with 97% passing their Algebra I state exam. She serves as our math department chair, regularly hosts lunch and learns for students, helps with after school tutoring, and her positive behavior rewards system might have some people thinking her classroom is a high stakes auction hall with students working hard to bid for top prizes! She is truly an inspiration to us all and models every day how fulfilling and FUN learning can be! She loves her students to her core and we love her and are thankful for all the roles she plays at our school. Congrats Ms. Fecca! You are a shining example of what it means to be Southside strong!